Uber Taps Eric Holder to Investigate Discrimination Claims
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
Holder has advocated for Uber in the past, we know he has a relationship with upper management already, which suggests it may not be a very impartial investigation.
He's been in an advisory position to Uber since at least mid 2016. From July:
> In one of the widest national efforts that Eric Holder Jr. has undertaken for a client since rejoining Covington & Burling last year, the former U.S. attorney general has written to lawmakers in three states on behalf of Uber Technologies Inc., urging them not to mandate fingerprinting for driver background checks. [1]
> Holder's firm advises the company on safety matters and Uber asked him to write the letter, according to company spokesman Craig Ewer. [2]
I hate to be negative and rude but I don't think this is going to generate the best outcome. What if Holder is just their go-to big name to get... political problems solved, and they just consider this to be just another pesky political problem?
The article mentions Holder's firm, and they mention that the firm did an investigation into Airbnb, but they don't mention the previous relationship of that firm to Uber. This seems like relevant info for such a story and makes me wonder if the omission is intentional.
[1] http://www.law.com/sites/almstaff/2016/06/16/eric-holder-adv...
[2] http://bigstory.ap.org/article/01685274cc944196af9016ad0a875...
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/magazine/only-one-top-ban...
None were found guilty in Britain as well. Nor did Congress enact any meaningful reform. Hell, Arizona has re-elected John McCain and he was a bag man for Charles Keating.
Seems like no one, Justice, Congress or the American people want to hold people accountable.
Interested to know why you exclude Jay Merchant, Alex Pabon, Peter Johnson et al from your count.
After Enron, many people (not enough) went to prison. Arthur Anderson was shut down with huge job losses. White collar jobs. Politicians and the Justice Department have no stomach for that.
Maybe they have a point. In the 30s, a lot of good banks went down as a contagion spread. In 2008, it was already bad and no one but no one wanted that. Lehman was more of a hit job favor for Goldman Sachs, but also a visible sacrifice. But no one wanted the 30s again.
It's OK if it's the best outcome, so long as those who broke the law are fairly punished. At this point, I'm not aware that Susan has initiated a lawsuit, so I'm guessing she'll be contacted with a settlement offer.
This is a great example of how allowing a douche to act in a way that everyone knows violates sexual harassment laws can cost a company money and reputation.
If you're someone's boss, don't talk about sex with them unless you are sure they will be happy to have that conversation and won't have second thoughts within the statute of limitations.
Based on your comment, I'm inferring that your view is that the best possible outcome for Uber would be a situation where a sham investigation is performed, valid accusations are suppressed, they can claim everything's OK and continue business as usual (and that this is the outcome Uber desires -- and they may very well desire this, I'm certainly suspicious). If that's an incorrect read, then please accept my apologies for what follows because that's what I'm addressing in this response.
At this point "the genie is out of the bottle". Every major (and many minor) news source has reported on Sarah Fowler's allegations. There's no going back so some sort of response has to be made to what's being alleged. I see two possible, obvious, options: Suppress/obstruct/lie and distract with a sham investigation. Settle quietly with any accusers with strong NDAs. Come back in a few weeks with findings that are as transparent as mud or get in front of it, probably still settle quietly with accusers/NDAs, communicate internally and externally extremely strong policies addressing this sort of behavior and operate with a nearly "zero tolerance", weed out the bad actors and revisit/measure success at regular intervals.
The best possible, long term outcome for Uber would be to get to the truth of what is happening in a way that is as public and transparent as possible. Then "move heaven and earth" to correct it, continuing to operate as publicly as possible about the outcome. This is a "sharing economy" company where riders and drivers alike are being asked to put a great deal of trust in an entity that looks very untrustworthy at this point. Assuming the allegations are true, what's going on over there is all kinds of bad, and not just for the victims of harassment/discrimination. Sarah Fowler's allegations extend far beyond her personal experiences. The biggest red flag that I saw was the ineptitude and powerlessness exhibited by HR. Without a strong HR department with the ability to independently take action on ethical failures like this, the company, itself, cannot be trusted.
I've been lucky to be part of companies that had strong, established guidelines that extended beyond the protections of the law coupled with HR departments that had the authority to act independent of management[0]. I know of specific cases where popular, top performing managers were removed despite the desires of C-level executives. Policies left little room for interpretation, required yearly re-agreement (with really annoying and specific tests) and required reporting even of witnessed harassment (with teeth -- if you were a witness, failed to report and were found out, you were subject to termination with cause).
Companies that do not demand such obvious ethical behavior are almost certainly suffering from many forms of employee ethical lapses. Corporate culture that actively suppresses reporting of unethical/discriminatory and harassing behavior (through the inaction of HR), cause the "good people" to leave (or stay, but in a state of demotivation and without a chance that they'll ever stand up), and leave the company run by people you can't trust.
Again, assuming these are true allegations, this is a far worse place to be than the position of a company having to apologize for bad behavior, settle some lawsuits and take the necessary action to restore confidence in what they're doing. Attacking it head on comes with the immediate risk that the dirty laundry will be aired for all to see, customers will lose confidence in the company and they won't be able to regain trust quickly enough after the bad actors are rooted out and the problem is corrected, but the alternative is like a pot of soup set to boil. At some point, the multiplication of bubbles accelerates until it rapidly boils over and in this case that might not be something that can be recovered from. It's also possible we're witnessing that pot boiling over right now.
[0] I was never in HR, but had near family-level friendships with a higher-up in that department who shared information that they almost certainly should not have with me.
But yeah, the optics aren't great. They could've chosen someone like Michael Garcia who has proven his independence. I'm almost inclined to suspect incompetence by now.
Anyway, does it matter? Uber is subsidising each ride at a rate of about 50%, operates in a market with literally no barriers to entry and is saddled with the burden of having investors and lenders expecting some return on the dozens of billions they burned through.
People have finally realised it's a frat house run by red-faced chauvinists and it's only a matter of time until the financial music stops and investors realise this Ford Ponzi only has two seats.
Prediction: Uber will go under within the next 12 months, it will be revealed that they've been most creative in their bookkeeping and there'll be a sudden need of a few extra beds in some federal sweaty-white-collar prison.
I'm not disputing your assessment of the company culture or the VC fueled pricing. They're spot on. I just think there's no viable competitor (at the moment) to truly challenge them.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/texas-capital-city-votes-to-kee...
Here's a man who just spent six years handing out soft-touch settlements to practically every Too Big to Fail bank in the world. Now he returns to a firm that represents many of those same companies: Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup, to name a few.
What has changed though, in a month were we have seen Zuckerberg apologize, an Infosys leaker and now Uber, is employees don't really put up as much as they used to with org culture.
I suspect it will be more of a Groupon type deal. They'll exist as a large player in an increasingly crowded market via their brand name advantage. Then expect big lay-offs as the valuations/cash injections drop and later some consolidation within the industry etc will shift everything to a significantly more realistic position.
IMO they left their IPO a little past the excitement point.
It also illustrates a big flaw in capitalism. Uber is spending a lot of money fixing government, and after they spend the money their competitors can come in and reap the benefits for free. I truly don't understand why so many investors are giving them money to throw at what is essentially altruism, but I'm glad they are.
Edit: The rules they are breaking may be silly, but they aren't fighting a moral cause. I guess this is the natural progression of corporations are people too.
What exactly do you think I want from a car ride?
I encourage everyone to break stupid rules. Let's leave the moralizing to religion.
I encourage everyone to break stupid rules
Yeah! let's fuck all those rules! They are purely for moralists!
Similarly when MLK supported Rosa Parks after she broke the law against sitting in the wrong place, he definitely meant for everyone to break the laws against rape and murder.
And what about the morality of telling two consenting adults how they can peacefully organize? Do you always like telling people how to live their lives with the threat of violence?
Sounds like the type of religion that would lead to mass starvation. Oh wait..
Various businesses also didn't want to deal with the (costly) hassle of segregation, and opposed segregation for that reason.
Would that mean they "aren't fighting a moral cause"? Were the only people who were fighting for a moral cause the white northerners who had nothing to gain?
Presumably the logic you are critiquing would also include any white southerners who stood to lose but still supported desegregation.
LOL. Give me a fucking break. Don't you dare use a term from the civil rights movement in reference to Uber.
* Determine what happened, and disclose.
* Offer compensation to Ms. Fowler, if warranted, and a public apology.
* Concrete changes in policy that would prevent this happening in the future.
Longer term, events like these should happen less at Uber.
The guy who did it may be eccentric and totally harmless to everyone who knows him, but none of that matters if there is evidence that a persistent harassment problem was not dealt with.
No matter what the circumstances, it's risky for a company to keep someone employed who has not completely rectified any problematic harassment behavior after receiving a single warning.
Changing a couple words in the policy doc? Not good enough.
If Uber actually wants to change, then heads need to roll. By which I mean fire a bunch of people and take away their options. A manager or three for inappropriate behavior; a bunch of people in HR, either for hushing up the problems in the first place ("Oh, this is the first time we're hearing about this." lol, really?) or for being incompetent at their job (specifically, opening them up to a huge lawsuit).
Whether Uber is willing to go that far is entirely up to them, just like it's up to me to determine if I'd even bother reinstalling the app.
Staff within the company will never be comfortable with reporting incidents to that team unless all of management, anyone directly involved in these allegations and (probably) most of the HR staff is replaced. Hiring a good, well known, HR manager to rebuild the organization would be the next, good, step.
Policies and codes of conduct are like laws. If they're unenforced, they don't exist.
Evidence acquired in an internal investigation is sometimes presented to the government to try and convince it not to prosecute. In that role, you generally want someone with credibility. At the same time, the lawyers doing the investigation are intensely protective of their credibility. Unlike any given client, the lawyers are repeat players with the government. And while the government double-checking your work won't uncover a single isolated instance of fraud, those odds change over repeated trials.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_International_phone_hac...
That Holder?
Right, the Holder who cut his teeth representing banks, became U.S. attorney general and refused to prosecute banks, and then went back to work representing banks. The Holder who has advocated on Uber's behalf in the past, and whose firm, Covington & Burling, has counseled Uber. I'm sure he's a real bastion of impartiality.
Actually, I had to review the history on this. Wide Receiver was started in 2006. Fast and Furious was a follow on in 2009. Holder has testified that he didn't authorize it. Issa+Company sure investigated the hell out of it although Gonzales never testified.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/27/world/americas/operation-fast-...
In this case however, the accuser claims to have verifiable evidence that her direct supervisor propositioned her for sex and then punished her for declining. And not only did Uber not remove him for it, it covered for him. If her accusation is true, and it probably is if Uber isn't denying it at this point, then Uber is causing incredible self-inflicted damage by allowing some employees bully over 1/7 of its technical/product workforce with impunity. Uber has taken over 8 billion dollars from investors. To those investors, how much has Uber represented that 1/7 of its workforce is worth?
Yeah, not surprising they're getting some famous names to help explain this.
For example, there's Uber's refusal to background-check their drivers using a system that includes fingerprints, which is something that most traditional taxi companies are required to do. The SF District Attorney has publicly called a background check without fingerprints "worthless."
Journalist Sarah Lacy of PandoDaily linked Uber's fingerprinting refusal to the number of cases of women kidnapped and/or raped by their Uber drivers, and how Uber seemed to think that this was either not happening or wasn't their fault. Lacy claimed in one article that that Uber PR would even smear the passengers as having been drunk and dressed inappropriately. In one case, a woman was choked by her Uber driver and police were called to the scene, but CEO Kalanick claimed in an interview in "GQ" that it didn't happen. (We're talking about hundreds of incidents of assault; a partial list is here: http://www.whosdrivingyou.org/rideshare-incidents )
Lacy also pointed out Uber's collaboration with escort services in Lyon, France -- which objectified Uber's female drivers as lingerie-clad escorts, and offered passengers free 20-minute rides with them...
And there was BuzzFeed News reporter Johana Bhuiyan, who had her trip information accessed on two occasions without her consent...
And then there was the report from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), which is non-partisan and non-profit, that found in a two-year study covering 1500 rides and published last October that female Uber passengers were taken on longer and therefore more expensive rides than male Uber passengers...
After seeing that website, I think the first few questions I had were: (i) During a given time period, how many rideshare trips were taken? (ii) How many rideshare riders were affected (killed, assaulted etc.)? (iii) During that same period, how many taxi trips were taken? (iv) How many taxi riders were affected?
That website only answers (ii), and not the rest of the three questions which makes the presented data meaningless (and also misleading, IMO).
Because just in Los Angeles alone, that number is at least twenty-five identified drivers, according to a lawsuit that Uber settled last year: https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/04/07/uber-settles-lawsuit-wi...
On the other hand, if ... and has substantially more incidents than traditional taxis, this is an important criticism! But you're not actually making the comparison that matters (and neither has any media that I've seen), so we don't know.
"Rhoma identified the employees she wanted to talk to based on an initial list we provided, the evidence she gathered, employees who asked to speak with her, people Julie asked her to speak with, and anyone else she determined was relevant, including Julie herself."
Sounds like she spoke to 'Julie' (i.e. the woman who made the accusations). As for independence:
"When the allegations against GitHub were raised publicly we took them seriously and within days launched an investigation into what happened. We hired Rhoma Young, an independent, third-party investigator that GitHub had never worked with before. Rhoma has a long history of conducting fair and impartial investigations, with 30+ years of HR experience. She has worked with every type of organization, from Fortune 50 companies to local governments, and frequently testifies as an expert witness for both plaintiffs and defendants in depositions, arbitrations, and in litigation involving discrimination, harassment, retaliation, disability, and mitigation of damages.
Most importantly, Rhoma does not have a history of siding with companies or otherwise being a partisan, industry spokesperson. Half of her litigation witness work is on the side of employees, half for companies. Her job is to investigate situations and figure out what actually happened, even when the people who hired her don’t want to hear it."
The full report is available here if you want to read it: https://github.com/blog/1826-follow-up-to-the-investigation-...
Horvath herself says that she never received an email from Rhoma, and (iirc) Rhoma says that she only reached out a few days before the end of the investigation.
Melissa Severini (who made similar claims against the same founder two years earlier) also said that she never heard from Rhoma, which is a glaring omission if you're an investigator looking to identify a potential pattern of behavior.
She never talked to Horvath (the woman who made the accusations that prompted the investigation) or Melissa Severini, the other woman who had made similar accusations against the same founder two years before.
The goal of this sort of investigation is to try to reset the clock--to try to get people to say "well let's see what the investigation finds," like the situation is a complete mystery, like it's a dead guy in a locked cabin with nothing but a puddle of water. "What a mystery we have stumbled upon! Let us investigate."
The reality is, this should never have happened in the first place, and it was 100% in Uber's control to prevent it.
The very best you can possibly say right now is that executive management at Uber placed zero emphasis on preventing harassment. If they had, their HR team would not have acted so stupidly.
Clearly, the stakes are much lower, here, unless Uber is also running a drone assassination campaign. But we have seen Holder before in a situation where his employer holds immense power over a departed stakeholder who has become a vocal critic, and we have seen his unwillingness to challenge power in that circumstance.
I hope I am wrong, and I hope that Holder can make a meaningful difference in preventing Uber from continuing to treat its employees so poorly as it did in the blog post in question.
How much process is "warranted" when a U.S. Citizen wages war against the U.S. abroad and actively tries to evade any attempts at accountability through other means? Is military action against a U.S. citizen abroad never warranted? Maybe, but maybe not. I wouldn't have made the same call as Holder, but that's just me opinion, not an inexorable legal conclusion.
I don't think I understand exactly what part of my post you disagree with. Did I misstate the facts?
I understand that you think Holder may be justified in saying that the Constitution did not prevent the assassination. I am not a lawyer, and I cannot argue that I can tell you what was meant by those words originally, or how lawyers or judges would interpret those words today.
I can say that in my view, a plain, humane, and just reading of those words does not include a panel, meeting in secret, without any representative of the accused present to defend him, deciding upon his execution. Further, I will say that I think it speaks to Holder's view of the authority granted to large institutions that he was willing to stand by this as justice.
If I was on a battlefield allied with forces against the side the United States government was directly supporting, I can't say I'd be surprised if the United States government killed me.
OK, but Anwar al-Awlaki was not on an active battlefield when he was assassinated.
It's really something I'm not very comfortable with under any circumstances. I mean, what sort of proof is required? Who holds them accountable? If I'm not mistaken, this guy's son & daughter have also been killed by drone strikes (one under Obama, another under Trump), though I don't think either children were individually targeted.
Anyhow, I do not foresee myself becoming any more comfortable with that sort of thing under Trump.
"Procedural due process is a legal doctrine in the United States that requires government officials to follow fair procedures before depriving a person of life, liberty, or property. When the government seeks to deprive a person of one of those interests, procedural due process minimally requires for the government to afford the person notice, an opportunity to be heard, and a decision made by a neutral decisionmaker. Procedural due process is required by the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution."
They deprived him of his life and did not afford him notice, the opportunity to be heard, or a decision made by a neutral decisionmaker.
That's why people are skeptical when Holder said his death met the requirements for due process.
How do we know that? Genuine question. May be they sent him a court notice to his last known address (in US or in foreign countries) asking him to appear in the court. What makes you believe that this did not happen? Are you implying that Anwar never knew that US law agencies were looking for him?
That said, I find it hard to believe that he was not aware that the United States government was looking for him.
There is a fundamental difference between policing and military action. Applying civilian legal standards to military situations is a bad idea because it inevitably results in watering down ordinary criminal protections to accommodate the needs of military situations.
Al Awalki was in a foreign country--where U.S. criminal laws presumptively do not apply--organizing armed action by foreigners against the United States. It's an archetypal act of war, rather than a crime.
But even so, why ask me? You're a lawyer, you know how to provide extraordinary evidence to support extraordinary claims relevant to what is by no means a settled question.
Due process means you to be tried in public before a jury of your peers, with a lawyer to represent you. And if convicted, you get to appeal.
> How much process is "warranted" when a U.S. Citizen wages war against the U.S. abroad
Waging war? Did he fire a shot at US forces? Did he plant a bomb?
If they pay Susan something larger than an annual salary and request that other female employees who suffered similar mistreatment come forward for similar compensation then they're serious about resolving the issue permanently and addressing their mistakes (I'm imagining Uber running ads like a personal injury lawyer 'are you a woman, have you worked at Uber corporate, were you sexually harassed and mistreated, please call Uber for $150k or more in compensation for the wrongs you were forced to endure).
No company actively prosecutes themselves. No lawyer seeks outcomes that aren't aligned with their client's best possible outcomes. Eric Holder, despite his name recognition and alignment w/ President Obama, is not there to help women who work at or have worked at Uber. He's there to help Uber look better.
How paying off victims has anything to do with resolving the issue permanently?
Assuming it's true.. You can take the Nixon position - didn't know what subordinates were doing - and probably didn't - but this goes to culture and that means - the very top management levels. Like it or not, the very top management is responsible for culture. Could be no one in the world more horrified reading about this, than the CEO. I would be.
However, I wouldn't be too harsh on bringing in people somewhat friendly to the company (doesn't mean they can't be impartial or follow the leads where ever they lead) - there is an interest in protecting (call it, saving) the company from people who did know about it and perpetrated it.
I'd look forward a criminal case opened on this, but it's up to Ms. Flowers. I am very aggressive person, I don't let people get away easily if they offend me like this.
Anyway, when the investigation is concluded, and when the investigation result matches the victim's statement, I expect no less from the CEO but a public meeting with reporters, bow to the TV audience like how one does in Japan. I expect no less. Leader who is "misled" and "misinformed" by his or her workers should feel scared. Think about the whole national adviser talking to Russia scandal.
Uber recruiter, you can take my name off your recruitment list.
Of course, if you're in a position of power over someone, you shouldn't do this or at least be aware of the consequences. But this culture of texting girls that are co-workers direct sexual or relationship stuff without even knowing them is just crazy. It's never appropriate.
Scheming politicians talking to scheming executives and management rarely results in good things. Hopefully this does but I'm not optimistic.
Uber has over 6,000 employees, so let's say you send a survey to all of them that's confidential asking about harassing behavior. Let's say you get a number like 6% [360] feel they've been harassed. Let's say you talk to the 6%, but half of those seem ambiguous (i.e. nothing in writing, this individual has complaints about a number of people and past jobs, individual's account seems inconsistent). Perhaps other employees don't even fill out your survey because they don't trust it's anonymous, or that when investigating their claims HR will be able to know who the "troublemakers" are.
Nonetheless you take the 3% that seem solid and to find common threads (the same person being complained about, HR people failing to record/raise complaints, etc) but without everything in writing it's so hard to prove who raised a concern about what last year. Maybe many of those people already have left (voluntarily or not).
I think if we want to solve these types of problems truly, we need to think about developing auditable systems (e.g. HR gives you a signed and written copy of every complaint, which their supervisor sees, and that lying on such a complaint be a legal offense on both the individual and corporate level).
Getting the info out of workers hasn't been the hard part in industry. It's getting management to act on it that's hard. Things have to get bad enough, esp in media, that executives are forced to respond and handle policy change top down. Uber is halfway in that position.
And that's why they're not hiring you.
And don't most companies cover this stuff during orientation and in the staff manual?
Even if they don't, so what if employees claim ignorance? There are a whole host of firing offenses that professionals are expected to know without being told. "Nobody told me I couldn't punch my boss," is not a reasonable excuse.
If she couldn't find other work in the tech field it might make sense, but if you're pulling down a silicon valley average 6 figure salary at another job you just move on.
In order to get a truly independent investigation, there will likely have to be a lawsuit, because companies very rarely want actual independent investigations.
Q: If you do not have family, and are reasonably healthy, what are the ethical implications of retaining a position at Uber and not resigning?
More importantly, though: it's completely stupid to join Uber now. It's pretty clear that the work environment has always been the sort of thing that kills any humanity people may have had. With this investigation, the backstabbing will only get worse. You'll get there (without any knowledge of the internal structure) and have to navigate a maze while it's on fire.
Somewhere above, I'm also making the case of an upcoming Uber->Under transformation. They were burning cash as if Elon Musk was trying to escape from the Federal Mint. Now, their revenue is taking a hit and investors won't touch them with a 10-foot pole in an open relationship.
Apart from engineers, their management may at the verge of collapse: If your vesting is nowhere in sight (and I believe Uber's vesting is tied to exit scenarios, so good luck with that), it's time to cut your losses before Holder's successor starts the actual investigation. If there's anything suspicious with their finances (which people have long been speculating about, considering they stopped publishing them), you don't want to be an innocent guy/gal in a guilty org.
After what happened to Susan.... Yeah, not anymore.
I like TK, he is honest & anti-burecracy (which is very important for engineers). We have weekly town hall & he answers all sort of questions from employees with honesty that i haven't seen in my previous companies. I feel Uber is going through growing pains since they grew too fast. They have hired/hiring managers from bigger companies who will help them transitioning into a mature company.
Bad shit happens sometimes. There's a lot of shitty assholes in the world, but crucifying a worthy cause and successful business because a couple of morons work there just seems counter productive.
As other comments have noted, this smells like the github situation a while back, and I'm no fan AT ALL of github, but even I concede that they are making a real difference for open source. I think uber is making that difference for moving people/things.
I want to see some justice, I want to know exactly how it went down and how it was able to get to that point ie a dependency resolution as far as who shirked policy and who didn't, AND THEN I want business as usual. Shit happens, fix it, move on.
Uber's "crucifixion" is well-deserved in this case. Time after time, Uber has proven itself to be an irresponsible company. Whether it's "God View" or the weird data blog they published on people's private data or this sexual harassment thing, they deserve some backlash.
I don't think "crucifying a worthy cause" is a good idea either. But I also don't think that Uber is a company working towards a brighter future. The future's definitely not brighter for their employees- I mean, contractors-, as those people's rights as employees are currently in the middle of a legal battle.
I think it's cool that Uber's breaking down the monopoly that taxi companies had. I think it's great that people are trying new things.
But Uber has proven time and time again that it's an irresponsible company and the sooner we realize it's probably not going to bring us the future we need, the better.
Secondly, Fowler did exactly the right things in response to these incidents, over and over: she kept evidence, and she talked to the people in the company who were ostensibly supposed to help her deal with them. For a year straight. The fact that things continued to steadily get worse for her throughout this process shows pretty clearly that this is not a couple of morons. This is an institutional problem at Uber that must be dealt with at an institutional level.
Why not just call her a liar and show your real true colors?
> show your true colors
Is very close to a personal attack. This doesn't need to turn into the CCN or Fox news comment section...
If you aren't claiming that ultrahate is displaying healthy skepticism, then what do you think he's doing? And why is that valuable enough that you took time to defend it?
Surely you must understand how, if these inappropriate actions truly occurred at least in part and management was complicit up the line the company must be held accountable as a whole? That accountable is what effects systemic change at organisations.
I could see how many people could jump to conclusions about Uber after reading the original blog post. However, by headcount- it is a medium to large company at this point while at the same time has an uncertain future and still taking big bets. I could see how that could cause chaos in some or all areas of the company.
Maybe- the blog post provide one point of view into Silicon Valley culture/gender dynamics. Maybe- this culture often exists within engineering departments of elite companies (vs the business/marketing/sales side).
There are a lot of moving parts in the original post: HR department acting unprofessionally, manufactured performance reviews and awkward IM's.
I've encountered situations where new employees just didn't fit in well with their coworkers, for a variety of reasons. They typically don't last long as employees. Usually a year or less.
Well, insofar as you present an alternative reality wherein Uber didn't do anything exceptional (by the standards of their peers), you're defending Uber.
And then "I've encountered situations where new employees just didn't fit in well with their coworkers".
If the engineer's claims are true, what happened to her and to others has nothing whatsoever to do with culture fit.
It wasn't posted anonymously. It's a blog post from a well-regarded female engineer with a lot to lose (her career, and possible financial penalties) if her claims turn out to be made up. The basic atmosphere she describes has been corroborated by other former Uber engineers. And a number of prominent female engineers at other companies have reported near-identical experiences in their own careers.
If I was a betting man, I'd put a lot of money on her claims being born out by any even-handed investigation (though, as other people here have commented, Uber's investigation is unlikely to be particularly neutral).
Additionally, nobody on HN is under any obligation to assume that anyone is innocent until proven guilty — that's up to the (criminal) courts.
But you still don't know.
But I suppose I do question the motivations of those who care deeply about presenting the "other side" when there are allegations of sexist practices in the workplace. In this particular scenario, the other side is a company with incredibly deep pockets and priority access to world leaders. They've dealt with far worse (e.g. threatening to stalk journalists), and they'll be fine.
In fact, an exec who threatened to "expose" a personal detail about a journalist who had written negatively about Uber is still employed there. Fancy that.
You don't have any proof that the moon isn't made of cheese, but do you go around saying "Uhh, have you ever been to the moon? You still don't know".
But.. There probably isn't right? Like, 95% chance there is no other side. With everything that you know about Uber, would any of things mentioned surprise you?
Assuming not, then invoking its protections here is ridiculous. We have a robust legal system because it has great power, power we must use fairly as we create a stable society.
But people are welcome to form opinions on whatever basis they please. And that can include things like Uber's history of terrible behavior and the history of sexist incidents at other tech companies.